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Solid welcome back to the 6am-ers – 14/08/2011

The 6am-ers hatched a grand plan some months ago; to run down the beach every couple of months in order to get as many 6am-ers on the road as possible. Well it’s working!

Sunday’s ride down through the Two Bays loop saw 19 riders hit the road on what would otherwise have been a miserably cold and foggy Sunday morning. As we rolled our way along Warrigal Road through Cheltenham, we were lucky if we could see 30 metres in front of us through the pea soup. This was no reflection of the mood however, which is always boystrous when this many of us get together.

It was great to see some not-so-frequently-seen 6am-ers on the road. Darryl the Tree Man was there and would later prove to put in a tremendously admirable effort on the return trip. The Smiling Assasin joined in with his brother for most of the roll down and Brendon (put onto us by the Extractor) joined us for the first time; to be lulled into a false sense of security by coming out on the flat with the 6am-ers on a rare cruisy beach ride. He’s coming out again in a couple of weeks to experience the true 6am-er experience of the hills.

As we hit the first little climb up Kars Street, I felt the twang of a spoke breaking before being subjected to the predictable mocking thereafter:

“You shouldn’t have had that fourth donut Readie. I told you to stop at three but you had to go for it didn’t you?” The Claw

“Don’t for a second think you have too much power Diesel.” Unidentified (probably Foggy)

“Are you glad you raided that ice-cream fridge every night in Sydney now Readie?” The Duke

I thanked the Lord for the forsight to have built 36 spoke wheels and kept on riding, thinking I now had an excuse for not doing the second lap of Two Bays that I had earlier boasted loudly about. Cool.

We hammered pretty quickly around the Two Bays loop, noting that some riders are going particularly well at present. El Mantes is flying, Taylo is as good as I’ve ever seen and Darryl the Tree Man remained solid around the whole loop, clearly benefiting from his recent gym program. All flew up Canadian Bay road well ahead of me… but I had a broken spoke remember.

Oh yeah – and Smithy, Horny and Bender, all of whom had promised to be there, were notable absentees. This one’s for you…

Yes – it’s concrete.

Many did a repeat of Two Bays Road (I couldn’t because I had a broken spoke remember) and we soon regrouped as the rest of us commenced to roll back along Nepean Highway. Some nice solid turns with the whole group in the mix had us back up to Hampton for coffee relatively quickly. This is where Darryl showed some fantastic grit. He waited just slightly too long to drop onto the back in order to remain amonst it…

… but a few of us dropped back to bring him back on and boy – he put-in big time. I love seeing it when someone with not quite the same power-to-weight as everyone else really puts in to do their finest in order to get to the coffee shop on time. Darryl is clearly on a mission and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the hills with us soon (someone’s probably going to tell me he’s been there whilst I’ve been away?).

Shawie and his bowl of coffee

Gilmore, feeling not quite so smashed-up as last week, spent the whole coffee time fixing a flat. As we all got up to leave when he sat down for his coffee, he was heard to mutter something similar to, “Please don’t ever let Foggy help me fix a flat again?!” – or something like that.

Most of us arrived home to family with 130 in the bank and a satisfied feeling in the legs. Many of us spent the afternoon acting like we were awake, alert and ready to hit the house-work.

Another extremely satisfying Sunday morning with the 6am-ers. Thanks for my welcome back.